This application claims the priority of Korean Patent Application No. 2003-41448, filed on Jun. 25, 2003, in the Korean Intellectual Property Office, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein in its entirety by reference.
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a semiconductor device, and more particularly, to a sense amplifier driver, which is not affected by an off-current in a semiconductor device manufactured in a high temperature, fast process, and a semiconductor device comprising the same. Further, the present invention relates to a method of generating a sense amplifier enable signal, which is not affected by an off-current, and a method of detecting data using the sense amplifier enable signal.
2. Description of the Related Art
FIG. 1 is a diagram of a conventional memory cell used in a semiconductor device. Referring to FIG. 1, a memory cell 10 is comprised of one transistor 11 and one capacitor 12.
In general, the transistor 11 has a gate connected to a word line WL and one end connected to a bit line BL. The capacitor 12 for storing data is connected between the other end of the transistor 11 and a ground voltage source VSS.
As a deep submicron technology is developed, a threshold voltage of the transistor 11 decreases to improve the performance of the transistor 11. Here, the performance of the transistor 11 can be represented by the amount of a current Idsat that can flow from the transistor 11 in a turn-on state.
However, when the threshold voltage of the transistor 11 decreases, the amount of a current (referred to as ‘on-current’ hereinafter) that can flow from the transistor 11 in a turn-on state increases, and the amount of a leakage current (referred to as ‘off-current’ hereinafter) that flows through the transistor in a turn-off state increases.
An off-current Ioff generally changes according to variations in voltage or type of process, for example, according to whether the process is a fast process or a slow process. Here, the fast process is a process for manufacturing a transistor having high on-current Idsat, and the slow process is a process for manufacturing a transistor having low on-current Idsat.
However, under specific conditions, for example, in a high-temperature, fast process, the off-current Ioff increases enough to affect the on-current Idsat. In particular, considering a difference between the on-current Idsat and the off-current Ioff during the high-temperature, fast process in a structure where a plurality of memory cells constitute an array, advantages taken by lowering threshold voltages of the memory cells considerably decrease.
When a memory device provided with a memory cell is designed, there is a limitation in lowering the threshold voltage of the memory cell due to such an off-current.